Echo Issue Outline: copyright Echo Education Services
First published in The Echo news digest and newspaper sources index.
Issue outline by J M McInerney
The Paxton case: Should those on unemployment benefits be entitled to reject job offers?
On February 19, 1996, Channel 9's A Current Affair aired a story on the problems of the long-term unemployed as illustrated by the Paxton family.
The Paxtons are a St Albans family, a mother, Dawn Paxton, and her four children, three of whom, Bindy, 20, Shane, 18, and Mark, 16, were on unemployment benefits.
On March 4, 1996, A Current Affair took the three eldest Paxton children to South Molle Island (one of the Whitsunday group) where a resort manager was apparently offering them employment.
All three rejected the possible jobs, Shane and Mark because they were going to be required to cut their hair, and Bindy because she said she did not like the uniform.
This created an enormous public outcry.
A phone poll conducted by the Herald Sun on March 6, drew 8000 callers, 95% of whom suggested that Bindy, Shane and Mark be removed from unemployment benefits.
On that day the Department of Social Security took the three young people off unemployment benefits.
This too has created controversy, with some critics claiming that the Paxtons had been treated unfairly and further that the media's handling of the issue had been prejudiced and sensationalising.
On March 12, 1996, the newly elected Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, publicly reiterated his party's policy of tightening checks on the unemployed and specifically criticised the Paxtons.
Background
Unemployment benefits are currently removed from those judged to have rejected reasonable offers of work.
In the last year and a half more than 17,000 people have had their unemployment benefits stopped either for refusing what the Commonwealth Employment Service judged to be suitable employment, or for not seeking employment.
Special note
No media treatment used in the production of this outline included the conditions under which an unemployed person continues to receive benefits.
The following information is a brief outline of the guidelines supplied by the CES. More detailed information can be obtained from any CES office.
To remain on unemployment benefits any unemployed person must meet the activity test. This means the unemployed person must be judged to be:
* making a genuine effort to look for suitable work;
* attempting to improve his or her prospects of gaining suitable work (that is, being ready to undertake any training program judged appropriate);
* ready to accept any offer of suitable work.
The CES maintains that each case is assessed individually regarding suitability for future training and what would constitute appropriate training.
On the question of what constitutes suitable work the general requirement is that a recipient of unemployment benefits must perform any work s/he is judged capable of performing. The only limitations on this requirement are:
* payment is not less than the award wage,
* there is not the requirement to be self-employed or work on commission,
* the person is not required to travel more than 90 minutes from their place of residence and
* the work is safe.)
In the Paxton case, it would appear that the Paxtons could not be required to relocate, however, other questions, such as the appropriateness of dress codes or appearance requirements do not seem to come under the CES guidelines as grounds for not accepting a job.
Arguments against those on unemployment benefits being able to reject job offers
The central argument put against the unemployed being able to reject job offers is that while they are being financially supported by the state they have forfeited whatever rights they may formerly have had to follow their own inclination regarding employment.
This is the position put by the editorial of the Herald Sun on March 14, 1996.
`[The Paxtons] have an obligation to contribute to the community that has been keeping them. When they refused to take the jobs offered them, the community in turn, exercised its rights by taking away their dole payments.'
According to this line of argument, unemployment benefits should never be regarded as a permanent source of alternate income.
Their purpose is to provide temporary support for the unemployed person while s/he seeks a job and financial self-sufficiency.
Thus the obligation to become self-supporting is claimed to be absolute and any benefit recipient who deliberately rejects an opportunity to become self-sufficient is seen to be no longer eligible to receive unemployment benefits.
A similar point was made by newly elected Prime Minster, Mr John Howard, `I would have thought that attitude stuck in the craw of hard-working people in this country - battlers who pay their taxes and struggle to raise their families.
`They don't mind people who want a job and who are desperate to get a job ... but the Australian community has no tolerance of that kind of assumption of guarantied support, irrespective of attitude.'
It has also been observed that in addition to placing an unjust burden on the average tax-payer, making unemployment benefits available to those who have not seriously attempted to seek employment is bad for the individuals concerned.
According to this line of argument, while the unemployed feel under no compulsion to find work, they will never know the satisfaction of supporting themselves.
This is the view that has been put by Steve Crabb, who was Victoria's employment minister from 1985 to 1988.
Mr Crabb appears to suggest some sympathy for the Paxtons because they have `never known how much better life can be with a wage packet in your pocket.'
Those who hold this view go on to argue that one of the dangers faced by the long-term unemployed is that as time goes on they become progressively more unable to meet the demands of regular employment.
Mike Munro, the A Current Affair reporter who conducted the various Paxton interviews and went with them to South Molle Island, has commented, `people who hadn't had a job for many, many months ... would become less inclined to hunt for jobs and would adopt values much different from the norm.'
This position has been elaborated by a columnist for The Australian, Frank Devine. Mr Devine has written, `Having never held jobs, they [the Paxtons] are scared of exposing themselves to the standards, challenges, competition and sink-or-swim risks of the workplace. They are scared about leaving mum alone, or perhaps just of leaving mum. They are scared of being separated from one another.
`They have got themselves into a bind that will tighten every year - and perhaps each generation- that they shrink from the world.'
Mr Crabb has put a similar view, referring to the Paxtons as `a classic example of the welfare trap: second generation on the dole ... resigned to life on welfare.'
According to this line of argument it is in the best interests of the unemployed to require them to take any suitable employment or have their benefits removed. Without this pressure, it has been suggested, some people on benefits may become permanently unfit for employment and have their pride and self-esteem damaged as a consequence.
In support of this view, Frank Devine has quoted the Paxtons' mother, Mrs Dawn Paxton, as saying, `People think we are shit. Perhaps we are shit.'
Mr Devine argues that this comment reveals the damage long-term unemployment has inflicted on Mrs Paxton's self-esteem.
Arguments in favour of the unemployed being able to reject job offers
Those who argue that the unemployed should be able to reject job offers maintain that the fact of unemployment does not prevent a person from exercising the same rights as are enjoyed by other members of the community.
According to this line of argument, if a person in receipt of unemployment benefits has a genuine reason for declining a job offer, then, that reason should be accepted, just as would be the case with any other member of the community.
One of the main reasons that has been suggested as a legitimate ground for an unemployed person to decline a job offer is distance (This ground appears to be accepted within the CES guidelines. Refer to the background material at the start of this outline.)
According to this line of argument, it is not reasonable to require people, such as the Paxtons, to be prepared to travel interstate in order to secure employment.
It has also been claimed that the Paxtons' youth is an additional factor making it inappropriate that they be forced to accept an interstate job offer.
The director of the Youth Affairs Council of Victoria, Mr Mark Longmuir, has argued that people as young as 16 and 18 should not be expected to travel thousands of kilometres from home to find work.
This point has also been made by Age columnist, Pamela Bone. Ms Bone suggests that the Paxtons may well have decided that `they didn't want to live ... two state away from their friends and family, and I wouldn't blame them.'
It has also been argued that the objections of Shane and Mark Paxton to having to have their hairs cut as a condition of gaining the job were valid.
This position has been put by Mr Paul McDonald, director of Salvation Army Crossroads. Mr McDonald has claimed that young people should be left to decide whether to accept restrictions placed on jobs.
Mr McDonald appeared to be referring particularly to the requirement that Shane and Mark Paxton cut their hair.
Mr Chris Puplick, head of the NSW Anti-Discrimination Board and the Privacy Council, has stated that attempts to make the Paxton boys cut their hair were in breach of national laws against discrimination on the basis of gender.
According to this line of argument, as the South Molle resort was prepared to employ women with long hair, in comparable positions, it was discriminatory and thus illegal to refuse to employ Shane and Mark Paxton on the grounds of hair length.
Further, it has been argued, it should not be possible for employers to set conditions of employment which have no bearing on the tasks they wish their employees to perform.
According to this line of argument, it was not reasonable for the manager of the South Molle resort to require that Shane and Mark Paxton cut their hairs as their capacity to work as either waiters or grounds attendants was not affected by their hairstyles.
Shane Paxton, in a letter published in the Herald Sun on March 13, 1996, stated, `Hair length does not effect your ability to work.' Previously, in the same letter, he had noted, `The Island is the only one of the Whitsunday Islands to have a short hair policy.'
Thus, it has been argued, if it were accepted that people such as the Paxtons could be required to meet the sort of preconditions laid down by their potential employer, then any potential employee could find him- or herself having to modify aspects of their appearance which had no bearing on the job they were attempting to gain.
If this were the case then, it has been argued, the legitimate rights of potential employees would have been significantly undermined.
Pamela Bone, The Age columnist cited earlier, has also observed, `According to the Herald Sun, a multi-national company operating in Melbourne has a code for employees which recommends that women remove facial hair (and wear make-up and earrings) and men pluck any "excess" hair from between their eyebrows.'
Ms Bone asks, `Is it now such an employers' market that people must submit to these kinds of rules?'
Further implications
The further implications of this issue are significant.
On the one hand there is the claim made by a number of media commentators, and others, that the Paxtons had were exploited by A Current Affair and some sections of the popular press.
The specific allegation has been made by the legal expert, Moira Raynor, that as long as the law protects minors who have committed crimes from being publicly named, then Mark Paxton, as a 16-year-old, should not have been publicly vilified as a `dole-bludger'.
Of additional significance is the nature and strength of popular reaction to the Paxton case. The Herald Sun's phone poll suggests that many people are highly critical of the Paxtons' behaviour.
Also of concern is the declaration of the new federal government, under John Howard, that his government will crack down on supposed social security fraud with the aim of saving some $500 million.
Those who maintain that the number of people who rort the social security system is very small, view such pledges with concern, as they believe that the end result will be that many people in legitimate need of Government assistance may cease to receive it.
On the other hand there are those who believe (and this would appear to be the majority opinion) that the publicity recently received by the Paxtons has been no more than a timely reminder of the readiness of some Australian citizens to claim as their right a life of state-subsidised indolence.
Whatever view is taken, it is to be hoped the federal government acts cautiously before it takes measures to stem supposed social security payment abuse. The government needs to ensure that those whom it ceases to finance actually deserve to have the social security net pulled from underneath them.
And then, beyond the question of desert, there remains the question of whether in a liberal, democratic society, it would be regarded as acceptable to have a certain percentage of the population unemployed and without financial support from the social security system, for whatever reason.
Some social commentators, such as Frank Devine, writing in The Australian, have asked, `Will the new government have the courage to put a time limit on unemployment benefits? Six months? Twelve months?'.
Devine argues that there would have to be plenty of advanced warning and that the transition would be difficult for many people, however, he maintains, that removing unemployment benefits after a specified period is necessary if all Australian citizens are to gain full self-respect.
The result of such a policy would inevitably be that a certain percentage of the long-term unemployed would find themselves without a job and no longer in receipt of unemployment benefits.
Critics ask how such a scheme could be proposed at a time when Australia appears structurally unable to provide employment for all its citizens, whether they wish to take up such employment or not.
A somewhat similar concern has been created by the new federal government's declared intention of not making unemployment benefits available to new immigrants for a period of two years.
For any new arrival who lost either their sponsor or their Australian employment the choice would appear to be between destitution or repatriation.
Sources
The Age
16/3/96 page 27 analysis by James Button, `Punishing the Paxtons'
16/3/96 page 27 analysis by Ross Warneke, `ACA is not the villain'
17/3/96 page 14 comment by Helen Elliott, `Society's hair trigger'
21/3/96 Green Guide section, page 1 and pages 10 to 11, comment by Elisabeth Lopez, `Ritual sacrifice'
22/3/96 page 13 comment by Pamela Bone, `Notwithstanding'
The Australian
12/3/96 page 2 news item by Lenore Taylor, `Howard cites non-triers in dole fraud crackdown'
14/3/96 page 9 comment by Frank Devine, `Handouts do not a helping hand make'
22/3/96 page 14 letters to the editor (3) including, `Spotlight on the Paxton affair'
The Herald Sun
6/3/96 page 3 news item by Tim Jamieson, `Paradise lost for the dole'
7/3/96 page 3 news item by Tim Jamieson, `Dole trio dumped over island jobs'
7/3/96 page 19 comment by Mike Munro, `They aren't the victims. We are'
7/3/96 page 19 comment by Steve Crabb, `A kick could do some good'
8/3/96 page 9 news item by Tim Jamieson, `Help bid for jobless trio'
8/3/96 page 16 editorial, `Paradise trio a doleful shame'
12/3/96 pages 1 and 2 news item, `Howard blasts job-refusal trio'
13/3/96 page 3 news item by Tim Jamieson, `Paxtons hit back'
14/3/96 page 18 editorial, `Of rights and obligations'
18/3/96 page 5 news item by Tim Jamieson, `Mother's desperate plea'
19/3/96 page 19 comment by Tim Jamieson, `Work-shy? Only if it means throwing mud'
What they said ...
`[The Paxtons] have an obligation to contribute to the community that has been keeping them. When they refused to take the jobs offered them, the community in turn, exercised its rights by taking away their dole payments'
Herald Sun editorial, March 14, 1996
`Unless I'm looking at this in the wrong way, people are mad at us for not taking jobs that would only be given to us if we cut our hair when the Human Rights and Equal Opportunities Commission say it was wrong of them to put that condition on the job'
Shane Paxton